Pitching a fit

I don't have any pictures of the next phase of the brewing process, when I took the wort off the heat and pitched my yeast. Why? Well, because it, uh, didn't go so well.

Once again, the instructions I had received with my kit didn't sync up with the advice that Charlie Papazian gives in The Complete Joy of Homebrewing. Earlier, I had disregarded the kit's directions in favor of Papazian's, with success. Maybe it was in the spirit of fair play that, this time, I followed the kit instead of Papazian. Big mistake.

The directions with the kit recommended submerging the stock pot in a bathtub full of cold water when it came off the heat, for 10-15 minutes. I didn't have a bathtub handy, so I filled up my sink about halfway with cold water and stuck the pot in there once the wort was finished boiling. In the meantime, I added three gallons of cold water to my fermentation bucket. Papazian recommended pouring the boiling wort directly into the fermenter, but that sounded crazy!

Note to self: Never doubt Charlie Papazian again.

I was impatient. By 9 minutes, I took the stock pot out of the water and poured the wort into the fermenter. Then I added the remaining gallon and a half or so of water. I had previously added my 15g of yeast to 1/2 cup of lukewarm water to activate it, so all I needed was for the wort to reach the target temperature before I could add it. I was excited, not least because I knew that brewers called this part of the process "pitching the yeast" and I was excited to use the lingo.

"Honey!" I called to my wife. "I'm pitching my yeast!"

As soon as I stick my spoon and hand (I have a small spoon) into the wort to stir vigorously, as the directions advised, I knew something was wrong. You are supposed to pitch your yeast when it's at 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit, but this felt much colder than that.

Previously, I had used the thermometer that came with my brewing kit to measure the hot wort right off the stove. It wasn't sanitized afterward. I sighed and figured I at least ought to wipe it off before using it again. I grabbed a piece of paper towel. The second I touched it to the tip of the thermometer, the thing exploded. The little black spheres inside it -- who knows what they were made of -- spilled all over the counter. I had used this thermometer once, for about five seconds, and now it was broken. At least it didn't blow up in my beer, I guess.

First, I thought a candy thermometer might make a suitable replacement, but it turns out that those don't measure below 100 degrees F. Next I tried a meat thermometer, which read about 57 F, far lower than the 70-80 it was supposed to be. Was the thermometer accurate? I have no idea. But I had no other way to tell.

On the plus side, 60 degrees F is the appropriate temperature to measure your brew's specific gravity, which was the next step in the process, so even if my yeast was fucked, at least this ought to work. The kit also comes with a hydrometer, which I'm pretty sure I last used in eight-grade science class, and I think I hated it then, too. I filled up a beaker with some of my prenatal beer, dropped in the hydrometer, and spun it to dislodge air bubbles, just as the book said.

The directions said that my beer's specific gravity should have measured 1.035-1.040. It measured 1.050.

That's not a little bit off. That's way off. And I didn't need to correct for temperature, either, because the hydrometer was just about zeroed out.

What happened? What went wrong? I have no idea. Nothing bothers me more than when I think I've followed directions, and things don't work out. Granted, I obviously brought the temperature down too fast, but I wouldn't imagined that would have such an outsized effect.

Now, I worried. Would my yeast activate? Should I wait to bottle my brew until it reaches the final specific gravity that the recipe recommends, or until it drops by the amount that the recipe recommends? Again: they don't tell you this stuff.

I had no other choice. I closed the lid on the bucket, attached the fermentation lock, and put the bucket away. I expected the worst.

Stress out. Worry. Have a homebrew?

I drink too much beer. I suppose it was inevitable that, one day, I would find myself trying to brew beer, as well. For economics alone, homebrewing is hard to beat. Spending just a few dollars, the homebrewer can concoct about 55 beers in a single batch. All it takes is a few hours of effort. There's nothing to it. Or is there?

That's what I intended to find out. This past Christmas, I received a homebrewing kit. Along with all the equipment -- siphon, fermenting bucket, bottle capper -- was a copy of Charlie Papazian's The Complete Joy of Homebrewing. Papazian is a homebrewing guru, basically the Dalai Lama of hopheads. His mantra, which he repeats over and over throughout the book, is:

Relax. Don't worry. Have a homebrew.

Sensible advice, which I completely failed to heed. In the days leading up to my first attempt at homebrewing, I was stressing out. No joke -- I had a nightmare in which my wort boiled over, my bottles exploded, and, worst of all, my beer was awful.

Even before I started, I had to wonder. Is homebrewing worth it? Why bother spending hours brewing beer, and then waiting weeks for it to be ready, when I can head to any corner store, drop a ten-spot, and come home with a six-pack and a decent night ahead of myself?

Hell, if you could explain what drives human beings to achieve anything, then you'd be the first person in history to do it. I had never thought about brewing my own beer until somebody gave me a push in that direction. Suddenly, I could think of nothing else. I imagined what new and unique recipes I'd want to try. I spent too much time thinking of a name for my "brewery." And I envisioned having a cellar full of spectacular brews, which I could hand to friends with a grin and say, "Yeah, I made this."

Off I went into the great unknown. Only one thing remained: to chronicle my first batch of homebrew for all the world to see. I may be stressing, and worrying, but one way or another, I will have a homebrew. Welcome to Second Draft Brewing.